Where’s that post I made about Mike being the companion that broke under the horrors bc I’m still right. When I think abt the THINGS some companions have had to endure and have still seemingly been fine, and then I think of mike losing himself and his values to a festering psychological wound that left him open to radicalisation, it’s like he is the evidence that actually everything isn’t fine.
Which is why it’s so important that he should be next seen in meditation, in the seeking of peace, in quietness and healing because not only is he a character that needs it he’s also a character that knows he needs it and seeks it out for himself, because he doesn’t recognise who he is anymore and he wants, not to redeem himself in the eyes of others (he won’t even go near UNIT, not even when he needs their help, he goes through Sarah Jane instead!), but to become a better person, to stop being a threat, and to heal for his own soul’s sake.
And so he goes from someone who was willing to see the entirety of human history erased, to someone who will risk his life for one person and the fact that that ultimately saves his life always imo comes across as a bit easy if you watch planet of the spiders without this context in mind. But when you do think about where Mike has been, psychologically, from the green death through to planet of the spiders, it doesn’t seem easy at all but actually a significant if understated character moment.
i was thinking abt the disparity of reactions in the companion meetup on the subject of the master & now i feel an urge to tally up who's met the master the most...
jo and dean's dynamic is so interesting to me because their development kind of goes in opposite directions. dean meets jo when he still buys into the narrative that hunters are heroes, that their dad did the right thing raising his kids in the life. and as the series goes on and he meets other hunters like gordon and processes his trauma he begins to realize that hunting eats you up. that being a hunter means watching your friends and family drop dead until one day you do too. and going out in a blaze of glory isn't something to hope for
but jo doesn't have that arc. she's an echo of dean, a younger version of him who can't wait to get out there and start hunting. she's restless and desperate to prove herself and tired of sitting on the sidelines. nevermind that the father she idolizes died on a hunt. nevermind that ellen's worst fear is that she has the same fate. and when she does die and dean survives he has to live with the knowledge that he went behind ellen's back and encouraged her to keep hunting. that he could've pushed her away from the life that killed her and he didn't